Portable Solar Panels

[bigpaul]

i'm not very technically minded and I don't have a clue how all this stuff works or how to connect it all up.
my philosophy is to have a very basic very simple set up, hand tools and hand cranked flashlights, simple non electric lanterns, cooking over a wood stove, etc.etc.
back to basics you might say!

 

[OldCoot]

i'm not very technically minded and I don't have a clue how all this stuff works or how to connect it all up.
my philosophy is to have a very basic very simple set up, hand tools and hand cranked flashlights, simple non electric lanterns, cooking over a wood stove, etc.etc.
back to basics you might say!

Ha. I'm like you and don't understand all this stuff. That is the beauty of what I use. That Nomad portable unit comes with a bunch of cables already attached, including USB used by so many devices. Just plug your device in. As seen in the pic below, one can use it to charge rechargeable batteries too.

To me, something like the Nomad 20 is worth it just to keep your smartphone charged. With that one device, you have so many tools besides a communication device. Too many to list but includes light, compass, level, camera, voice recorder, plus a wealth of apps such as first aid or knot tying.

As far as the solar generator, you plug the solar panel into the input. The output is just regular electric plugs plus some dc outlets if you need. That is the extent of skill needed.

 

[bigpaul]

I've just looked to see if the Nomad 20 is available in the UK, it is but it retails at £189.99, not sure if I can justify such an expense for something that might never get used, its a bit like walkie talkies and other radio stuff, gets put in a drawer and only comes out WHEN SHTF.
like I said i'm just exploring the theory of all this stuff, not sure if I want to go down that particular road, but thanks for the info anyway.

 

[tmttactical]

To me the question on solar is scale. By that I mean what are you willing to live without? Whole house with A/C, then huge system. Just enough to power / recharge your cell or radios. then very small portable, like Oldcoot showed. The fly in the ointments is the batteries, they are the weak link.

 

[Brent S]

I haven’t spent much time yet looking for DC appliances yet but a quick search did not show much in the way of full sized stuff. Even with the smaller things I’m leaning towards this avenue over the huge battery bank.

 

[bigpaul]

depends what you want it for, i'm not looking at the here and now as we have mains electric, post SHTF is my particular interest, we don't have central heating-wife just spent a weekend with her nephew and his wife and they have central heating and they are coughing and sneezing all the time, we grew up without central heating so are used to it.
cells and radio's post SHTF?cant see any use for them not for us anyway, I've got wind up radios for monitoring but wont be communicating.
any battery stuff will wear out and become useless once all the chemicals wear out and cant be replaced, so i'm not keeping a huge stock of batteries, I prefer wind up stuff anyway.